Buying High & Selling Low – Why trading Jason Zucker is a risky move

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The Minnesota Wild signed Zucker to a 5-year, $27.5M contract after the 2017-18 season – a season in which he set a career high in goals (33) and points (64). While there are plenty of examples of teams signing players in their mid-20’s to ridiculous contracts after an outlier season, this wasn’t one of them. Zucker has scored 20+ goals four times and a $5.5M per-year cap hit is definitely reasonable considering only Zach Parise had scored more goals for Minnesota in the previous 3 seasons. Here’s why trading him now, for what appears to be a ‘change for the sake of change’ move, might not be the best idea.

Zucker is coming off a 21 goal season, his lowest total in the past 3 years. His expected goals total was 26, meaning based on the quality and quantity of his chances, he should have scored more than he did and over a larger sample size, and he likely will. In fact, at even-strength, no Minnesota Wild player underperformed his expected goals output more than Zucker. He got plenty of good looks – they just didn’t go in at their expected rate. Consider this – only 11 players in the league played 1,000 even-strength minutes last season and averaged more scoring chances per 20 minutes than Zucker. Of those 11 players, five scored 40 or more goals and ten scored 30 or more. The only player in that group that didn’t score 30-goals was Josh Anderson, who finished with 27. Zucker might not have scored 25-30 goals last year, but the underlying numbers show he’s a 25-30 goal scorer.

Rival GM’s might realize he’s worth more than the numbers he put up last season, but it’s hard to imagine many who are going to offer fair value for him. The Wild, who finished 27th in goal scoring, can’t afford to part ways with one of their top goal scorers and not get equal value back.

Jason Zucker’s perceived value is not the same as his actual value and I’d be very careful If I were Minnesota before sending him to another team.

Zucker is going to score more than 21 goals next season. I’m willing to bet he scores between 26 and 33 goals – wherever he ends up playing. Even though the Wild appear to be looking to shed salary to reshape their roster in free agency, Zucker isn’t a guy I’d be too eager to part ways with. On the flip side, if I were an NHL GM, I’d be doing whatever I could to acquire one of the most undervalued trade commodities on the market.